December 16th, 2011 - Harbortown Marine, Merritt Island, FL

Hauled, Scraped, and Blasted:
Still wonderful temperatures in the high seventies since we got here. What a difference from last year.
Well, we finally got Cool Change hauled (taken out of the water for you landlubbers) to change the propellers. Poor performance had indicated that we most likely had heavy marine growth on the props, shafts and hull.  We did not anticipate this when we left Brunswick.

Cool Change on the travellift

Yuck1

Oysters, barnacles, sea cumbers and grass growing on the trim tabs

No wonder the props did not perform

No wonder the performance suffered

Scrape away men

After scraping, the props were traded out for our spares

The running gear was as bad as we had suspected.  However the hull was not bad at all.  We had hired a diver to clean the hull about 2 months ago.  He evidently did a good job except that he only cleaned the hull and ignored the rudders, propellers, shafts, struts and trim tabs.  Now we know what to ask for in the future when we hire a diver to do a job like this!  The heavy growth cost us a lot of extra fuel burned in the 220 miles from Brunswick (note: only 180 highway miles).

$329 later, here is the result.

Pressure washing the algae scum from the hull

Shiny spare  props installed

Heading back to the river

Please don't drop me!!

 In less than two hours we were again floating and motoring back to our slip, D14.  We really are getting pretty good at placing the boat where we want it to go...most of the time.  To park in our slip we had to back the 40 foot boat between two other boats with about two feet of room on one side and three feet on the other with about a 10 mph breeze pushing us sideways. Of course our great bow thruster had exhausted its battery again.  Talk about puckering. Via headsets Colleen instructs me as to where different parts of the boat are positioned relative to pilings and other boats and also directs which way to move the boat.  Keep in mind that the captain cannot see the stern from the flybridge and depends on this input.  Got very lucky again!  I must give credit where due.  My friend, Roger, has drilled me to steer the boat with just the two shifters by moving them between forward and reverse to swing the bow and to walk the stern in the desired direction.  And...Roger says "don't touch the steering wheel".  Thank you Roger.  It really works.

Fuel gauges:
Today I replaced the second of the four bad fuel sending units.  The task was to be 30 minutes of work and 30 minutes of prep and moving furniture to get the floor panels up to reveal the work site - the top of the port forward fuel tank.  Well 3 1/2 hours later the job was completed.  The five little screws holding the fuel level sending unit defeated me for well over two hours.  I won't go into how I re-engineered the installation.  Only two more to replace and here is where they will go.

Do you see the gauges within this 8 inch tall access?

The two gauge units are the golden colored discs behind the two black hoses wrapped with the green ground cables.

Harbortown Marina & Restaurant building

Look at me Baby....am I pretty or what?

Let's party

Look..I can jump four feet high

While visiting at the home of Al & Marla, two four foot tall sandhill cranes swooped in whooping and calling loudly.  These large birds have become a regular occurence in these parts.  I was raised in Florida and had never seen a sandhill crane in my 50 years living here.  We also have seen wild flamingos and bald eagles.  In those same years I had never seen a flamingo except in a zoo and had seen few bald eagles.  Maybe in the resurgence of these large birds we are finally seeing the results of banning DDT 30+ years ago.  What a sight theses cranes were as we approached within 40 feet of them.

Harbortown Marina, Merritt Island, FL

What we've been doing

I know you all think that we are "roughing it" but I have to confess - this is life lived easy.  As soon as we got here Marla and Al loaned us the truck we used last year.  Then, yesterday, Wayne went with our friend, Roger, up to Brunswick and picked up our SUV that we parked there.  We'll return Marla and Al's truck and now have our own vehicle.  We're thinking that we'll do this all over the state as we travel this year.  We hope that we'll try to walk and bike in communities that are pedestrian friendly but it'll be great to have our wheels when we need them.

Speaking of roughing it, I do have to wash dishes by hand and the clothes washing arrangements are a bit primitive.  It's an open air affair with three coin operated washers and dryers.  Last year when it was cold here getting our clothes clean was a real ordeal but the weather has been so nice the past week that the open air aspect was actually an advantage, like washing on a balmy tropical island.  The marina laundromats are always a great place to meet other boaters and just about all of the laundromat areas have an informal library.  You leave a book and take a book.

The less-than-luxurious laudromat at Harbortown

In addition to washing dishes and clothes we've spent time with local friends, celebrated Marla's birthday (a very large number!) and her granddaughter Nora's 16th birthday.  We've done some Christmas shopping and have shopped at a few quilt stores and Marcy came over one day to work on a sewing project with me.  The Quilt Place in Rockledge is an especially nice quilt shop in this area.  I've spent several days sewing from dawn to dusk - and beyond.  I can't show you all of the projects I've completed yet but I'll take photos and post them after Christmas.

Nearly finished - a woven fabric basket that Marcy and I worked on

A very easy little snap bag I made

  Tonight Wayne and I went to a movie  We did this after mistakenly going over to the boat next door for cocktails but the invitation was for tomorrow, not tonight.  Duh.  The movie we saw was The Descendants.  Very Good.  We both enjoyed it and were able to forget just how senile we felt over the cocktail hour goofup.

A few days ago we went back to Rockledge Gardens to pick up our new lettuce bowl.  We bought a big bowl full of growing lettuces, several different varieties, last year and made salads off of it for two-and-a-half months.  We were trying to find Made in America products at the nursery and finally commented to a salesperson that we'd been unsuccessful.  She responded by pointing out that all of their plants were made in America.  Good point.

Readymade salads for the next few months

Repairs and Maintainance

Wayne says to report that he's mainly been loafing but he's also been web ordering parts for the boat, has topped off the water in eight of the nine batteries on board and has replaced one of the four fuel gauges that are all reading inaccurately or not reading at all.  He has ordered a second one to complete the upgrade of the forward two fuel tanks.  It is as yet unknown if he can find a way to get to the two fuel tanks that reside inside the swim platform and behind the headboard in the master cabin.  Maybe he can find a midget to accomp[lish that task.   He's done lots of cleaning in the cockpit and the aft (rear) deck.  Tomorrow the boat will be pulled out of the water so we can clean off the bottom a bit and change props.  We'll make sure we take pictures of that.  It's a big production.

The web sure does open the world up when you live on a boat

Christmas in the Marina

We're surprised to find many more boats decorated for Christmas than were here last year.  The marina is quite full and many boats contain liveaboard couples who either spend all their time on a boat or several months of the year, as we're doing.  Can you imagine having all of your possessions in a boat?

Trees on a boat.  Think small

Our Christmas tree on the aft deck, including many nautical trimmings

12/5 -12/9/2011 St Augustine to New Smyrna to Merritt Island

Boarded by the Coast Guard!  Yes, our first boarding ever by the CG.  As we approached Ponce DeLeon inlet at New Smyrna Beach,  a CG boat passed us and turned around and then hailed us on the VHF radio.  They announced that they were putting a boarding party aboard our boat and to continue moving at idle speed.  With that request / demand / statement we waited as the CG rubber boat approached our stern and deposited two Coasties aboard.  They very politely stated that they were doing a random safety inspection/contraband and smuggling search and asked if we had weapons aboard.  No problem with us as we knew there were no guns, no illegal aliens and no drugs aboard.  During the next 25 minutes ,they searched every nook and cranny of Cool Change.  They separated Colleen and me and asked probing questions to check our composure and demeanor.  We passed and the inspection turned to safety equipment.  They checked fire extinguishers.  I had just up-sized those to exceed CG requirements.  They checked to see if we were dumping sewage overboard, if we had proper documentation, the correct PFDs (life jackets),  flares and signaling devices.  They even went into great depth in checking our automatic inflating PFDs.  It just so happens that I found that three of our four automatic inflating PFDs were non-functional about a month ago and had rearmed the inflating devices on each.  I had alerted the CG, Boat US Safety Council, and the Boating Safety Council of the CG and our local Power Squadron safety examiners of an inherent safety flaw in this type of PFD.  I am of the belief that people will lose their lives in trusting this poorly designed activation system.  I cannot believe that the CG allowed this type of PFD to be certified.  In fact, in our conversations, the boarding officer told me that a Coastie had recently lost his life when his PFD failed to inflate due to an undetected prior depletion of the CO2 charge in his vest.  If you have a self-inflating PFD, you can find a lot of information online on how to check it before each use.

Now to our actual travels:
We left the mooring buoy in St. Augustine right at 8AM on Dec. 5th after an enjoyable visit to the old city.  Our destination was to be Daytona Beach to anchor in the ICW adjacent to the municipal marina.  As we progressed it became apparent that we would arrive in Daytona about 2 PM.  If we anchored there we would traverse the Mosquito Lagoon to the Indian River passage while facing the setting sun the next afternoon.  No way!  We did that last year and could not see the markers to stay on the course that was dredged through the shallow waters there. 

Ft. Matanzas at Marineland Pass

Marineland Pass with Atlantic Ocean beyond

Home & boat of friends Pidge and John on ICW near Palm Coast

We decided to push on to New Smyrna for two more hours so that we would enter the Indian River about noon the next day.  After the encounter with the CG, we proceeded past Ponce DeLeon Inlet and attempted to get into a charted anchorage in a side channel. 

One BIG house!

Tile murals on Daytona bridge

We followed the directions in "Skipper Bob's Guide to Anchorages on the ICW"   but ran aground in a sand bar twice before we gave up on the that spot.  We traveled to another suggested anchorage and dropped our anchor very near marker 3 in Sheepshead Cut.  We were close to private docks and a marker so we had to keep our anchor chain to 50 feet only.  After observing that we held fast through a tide change, we were confident that the 50 feet of chain was going to hold us until the next morning.  Though we had high winds and a light rain, we had a very peaceful night there.



Views from our Sheepshead Cut anchorage

We departed Sheepshead Cut at 6:50 AM on Dec. 6th for our destination for December, Harbortown Marina in Merritt Island (Cocoa Beach).   Colleen initiated the startup of all of the electronics and electrical checklist, then started and warmed up the engines.  When ready, she pulled the anchor (it should be noted that we have an electric windlass that retrieves the anchor) as she motored toward it.  She then used the shifters to rotate the boat and proceeded around marker 3 and motored into the ICW.  This was her first complete de-anchoring alone and it was done perfectly.  We traveled 5 hours and 50 miles to Harbortown Marina.  The travel was so easy and uneventful that we pulled aside the ICW and dropped anchor for a leisurely lunch just south of the NASA causeway.

Early morning on Mosquito Lagoon

 

Mosquito Lagoon - 15 miles of sameness

Spoil island in the Indian River

NASA verticle assembly building

Repairs:
During our travels, the starboard fuel gauge continued to read full.  This is the gauge that we had depended on for accuracy as the port gauge jumps all over and reads lower that the actual fuel level.  We will need to pull both of these gauges for repair during our 30 day stay in Harbortown Marina.
Our continued performance problem due to  prop fouling will require that we take the boat out of the water.  We will change props and clean the algae growth from the hull to regain performance and fuel economy (if you can say economy with two diesel engines).  In addition, a new problem has developed with the inverter / charger that produces 120 volt AC.  Hopefully that repair will not be major.  Our bow thruster that was remarkably helpful when we undockedneed to be corrected while here.

Settled in Harbortown:
We're preparing for Christmas by decorating the boat with lights.  We've also purchased a small artificial tree and will be decorating it with lights and ornaments we accumulated last year (trying not to think of the six boxes of ornaments, etc. that we left sitting in the attic in North Carolina).  We've enjoyed several meals with our local friends, Roger and Marcy and Marla and Al and hope to see some Orlando friends and family members while we're here.  Right away we made a trip to Rockledge Gardens.  This is an awesome plant nursery, so well landscaped and stocked that we both feel we should be paying admission just to walk through their grounds.  They have every tropical plant you can imagine as well as a butterfly house and pots and garden furniture and a Christmas area.

The Weather!:

Last year it was so cold here!  We felt we  really had not moved many degrees warmer by coming south.  The past several days have been just perfect - 70s and 80s during the day and cool nights for sleeping.  So we're settled for a while.  Drop by and see us if you get over this way - exit the Beachline at highway 3, north at the light and then right on the second road. Don't go over the bridge.  Harbortown is about a mile and a half down on the left and we're in slip D14.

Fernandina Beach to St. Augustine, December 3-4

Judging from the reader responses we've received over the past few days, I think I'd better answer the burning question that you all seem to have before I do anything else.  Yes, we did finally manage to get our holding tanks pumped out.  Yippee!  No more looking for marina and restaurant bathrooms.  Wayne is also happy that I'm no longer forcing him to relieve himself in the trash can on the back deck to save toilet space.

We've been in St. Augustine since yesterday afternoon.  The trip getting here was beautiful, although still meandering.  The weather over the past two days has been perfect, averaging about 73 degrees and with more sun than clouds. We had more boat company along the way than we usually have.  At one point a sailboat passed us and Wayne commented that it looked like the brand owned by Tom Neal, a boating author whose writing we've enjoyed in Soundings magazine and who wrote a book about living on his boat with his family.  As we saw the rear of the boat Wayne exclaimed, "That's the name of Tom Neal's boat!"  He then contacted the boat by radio and, sure enough, it was Tom Neal, who graciously chatted with us for a while.

A beautiful day, good lunch, an interesting book - what  more could I ask for?

Another boat named "Cool Change," about 56 feet long

Thank goodness catching a mooring ball in the harbor this time was not the ordeal it was last year.  Feel free to reread my description.  This task can be really difficult when the wind is high and the waves are rough.  Imagine threading a needle in a strong wind while precariously hanging over an abyss.  That about describes it.

St. Augustine's pirate ship with the light house in the background

Today we went into the city to shop and tour.  We hadn't been to Potter's Wax Museum in a long time so we stopped by there.  It's much reduced in size from what it was twenty years ago but we enjoyed what we saw and I was happy to have my photo taken with Harry Potter since I'm a big fan.

Harry and me and - Eeek, Voldemort to my right

Another highlight of the day was stopping for a snack at Harry's, a restaurant on Avenida Menendez near the Bridge of the Lions.  Last winter we discovered they serve delicious Bananas Foster so we settled into a table in their lovely courtyard for a repeat.  They say they can't set this dessert aflame at the table anymore, something about a lady's hair being caught on fire, but we enjoyed it anyway.

We also took a free tour of the Government House Museum, a place we've never visited.  This is an exhibit of archeological finds from in and around St. Augustine in displays that give a lot of information on the city's more than 400 year history.  Nothing fancy but very interesting and, at the end, there's a cool timeline (this is the teacher talking).

Looking south on St George Street

One of the city's many beautiful courtyards

The lion and Colleen guarding the Bridge of Lions

The day was so beautiful that we stopped several times just to sit on a bench outside to soak it up.  Breezy and cool with delicious sunshine, it was Florida winter at its best in this delightful old city on the Matanzas River.  Tomorrow we'll cruise on down the river and plan to anchor out near Daytona in the evening.

December 1-2: Brunswick, Ga to Fernindina Beach, FL

After 8 months of waiting and preparations we finally shoved off on our 2nd winter cruise to Florida waters.  We left the marina at 8:45 after removing the water hose, electrical cords, cable TV cord, extra hurricane lines (actually got the 4 spare lines off the evening before), the normal docking lines, paying our final bill at the marina, and wiping the morning dew from the side curtains surrounding the flybridge.  I should note here that again we were unable to get our holding tanks pumped by the marina staff. For those non-boaters following our blog, the holding tanks are our onboard sewage tanks  The Brunswick marina will only pump our tanks by appointment and then only at high tide.  High tide only because the golf cart will not pull the "honey cart" up the ramp from the main dock to the land at any steeper incline than exists at high tide.  That limits the pumping to 1 hour per day due to the tide level and it takes 30 minutes to get into position and to pump out and 30 minutes for the staff to haul up the ramp and to dump the poop and get back for the next boat.  Oops, now the tide level is too low to handle the next boat.  And there are 320 boats in the marina.  So you get the picture.  Marina staff do not like to empty our toilets.  We left Brunswick with our holding tanks 3/4 full.

One of the drawbacks of the Brunswick Landing Marina, the local paper mill

After warming the engines - these diesels sure take a long time to get all that iron up to temperature - we shoved off with the unnecessary assistance of the lady on the boat across the dock from us.  There is always a willing dock hand in the boating community and they will not take no for an answer.  Actually, we do always accept assistance; we just didn't need it this time.  With boats you never know what you are going to do wrong that will necessitate the assistance of someone who knows just what to do to help.  We backed out and spun the boat in the short distance between the two piers by applying forward to the starboard engine and reverse to the port engine while also triggering the bow thruster to push us to port.  Please note the "port" and "left" both have four letters.  That always works for me as does "red has fewer letters than green" and "left has fewer letters than right".  Port is left and is red.  Starboard is green and is right.

Shrimp boat coming in with catch - Brunswick

We exited the marina and proceeded through the 200 + foot tall suspension bridge leaving Brunswick for Jekyll Island.  Colleen acted the part of chief nagivator (not a misspelling but a newly coined seafaring title aboard Cool Change) to make sure that I stayed on course and on the right course.  My turn as nagivator would come later.  We were concerned in that recently there have been numerous reports of groundings near the Jekyll Island bridge.  So we would have to be on the lookout even though we timed our departure to coincide our arrival at Jekyll with near high tide.  We had no problem there at all.  Also, after last spring's hair raising experience transiting St. Andrews Inlet, we were taking a five mile longer passage around the inlet through the marsh grass flats between Jekyll Island and the mainland.  There is nothing but grass there.  The only trees are scrubs growing where the corp of engineers had dumped diggings 60 years ago.  It seemed that we were going east and west as much as south through the twisting canal.  We even turned north on several channel passages.  These grass flats conjure up images of the movie "African Queen".  Again, our timing for the tides was to allow us to pass through this area without grounding as there were numerous reports of such groundings in this area also.  In all it required 3 hours to get past Jekyll and through the grass flats of St. Andrews Inlet, involving about an hour more of travel time.

Grass flats forever!!!

We found that we have a problem that we had not anticipated.  It appears that we have barnacle buildup on our props as they are not producing full and clean thrust.  Today we attempted to get the boat hauled and our spare props installed but could not get scheduled for more than a week out.  So we will travel on and hope that the deposits will erode as we travel until we can get the props replaced.

We traveled another 3 hours and passed the Kings Bay submarine base to get to the Florida - Georgia border and into Fernandina Beach, FL.  Our plan was to attach to a city-provided mooring ball for $20 per night.  However,the water was quite rough and the wind was strong and cold, so we decided to stay in the city marina.  The cost for two nights is $179!  Get this, we use our linens, provide our own breakfast, watch our own TV, clean our own bath, and get charged Hampton Inn rates.  That is the "transient" dockage rate on the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway).  This is an example of what over regulation and government intervention produces.  And, guess what, the pumpout system is broken here!  Still NO PUMPOUT!

Sunset in Fernandina Beach

Fernandina Harbor marina

In Fernandina, we walked the old city shops and had a wonderfully enjoyable afternoon.  Today we had lunch in the village and then got a taxi to take us to Ft. Clinch State Park.  We really enjoyed a guided tour performed by a 1862 era Union soldier / engineer.  You have to visit this fort.  It guards the entrance to St. Marys Inlet and never fired a shot at an enemy.  It is quite grand.  We finished the day with a good meal aboard and plan an early exit tomorrow just before high tide and will proceed toward our next stop, St. Augustine, one of our favorite cities.

Ft. Clinch

Buildings at Fort Clinch

Our knowledgeable guide shows us a Union soldier's full kit

The walls of the fort, looking seaward

Wayne and one of many cannon

Getting ready for this year's journey

Wayne and I arrived in Brunswick today, ready to stock Cool Change for this year's journey down the Intracoastal.  I'm a little bit baffled by the large amount of "stuff" that filled the car.  This is our second load, after having brought an earlier carfull down several weeks ago.  I seem to have more sewing supplies and projects and Wayne seems to have more tools and boating gadgets.  Hopefully, we can still move the boat through the water with the weight we've added.  Our plan is to work on cleaning and some minor jobs and to head south no later than Thursday, December 1st.

Several friends and relations have commented after our last year's trip, implying that I (Colleen) am extremely nautical, very wifely, admirably adaptable and even adventuresome.  Now, last year's trip was certainly enjoyable but not for any of the above reasons.  I really must point out that the real reason for my willingness to accompany Wayne on this dream of living and cruising on a boat was all about him.  Not only do I like being with him a lot but he made an enormous effort to make me feel welcome and involved in his adventure.  He realized that I would be most content on this trip if I was able to pursue my hobby of sewing on our journey and right away he gave me generous space to do so.  He added the inverter so I could run the sewing machine (well, yeah, he did want to watch the TV too) and he worked hard to make sure that Cool Change has many creature comforts that make her appealing to a woman (new carpet and customized storage areas to name a few).

So, if you're a guy who has read of our adventures and you've said to your maybe a little reluctant significant other, "Look, Colleen took to cooking in cramped quarters, taking chilly Navy showers, giving up her king-sized bed for four months and hoarding quarters so she could wash and dry clothes in some pretty horrible marina laundry areas," I think you should try another approach.  Think of all the ways you can make living on a boat fun for her, just as Wayne did.  Good luck. 

The time to depart Brunswick, GA for Florida is rapidly approaching.  The planned departure date is Dec. 1^st.  Since mid-March, we have made trips to Cool Change about every 3 weeks or so.  Recently the visits have been about every 2 weeks. 

We have made a number of upgrades to the boat during these 7 months.   The most significant of the changes was the replacement of all of the carpeting aboard.  The carpet was so soiled that I believe that the previous owners must have spilled more drinks than they consumed.  All of the carpet was glued down and stapled at all edges.  Great fun removing the old carpet!   The floor of the main salon is made up of 6 lift out floor sections and surrounding permanent sections.  The galley and aft cabin had a total of 6 combined inspection hatches.  Each section was ringed with staples – thousands of staples.  I swore that I would not use that many staples when I did the job.  But to get the carpet to pull around the floor sections and stay in place for the carpet glue to set, I shot more than 4000 staples with my air gun stapler.  The carpet replacement required 5 visits to the boat to complete.

Lighter new carpet and older dark carpet during installation

We also upgraded our VHF radio and antenna– the bridge tenders in south Florida kept saying they could not hear our transmissions.  Even when they could hear us, I think that they sometimes paid little attention or barked at us for some transgression.  The new antenna is a much higher performance model than was originally aboard.  The new VHF radio is a DSC (Digital Selective Calling) model.  It is linked to our GPS so that our GPS position can be automatically transmitted.  The VHF radio is registered in the Coast Guard data base so that information about our boat is automatically transmitted continuously.  The information that the Guard receives includes a description of our boat as well as the boat name and most of all our, GPS position.  The radio has a distress button so it can even transmit a selectable type of distress to the CG.  Other boats and especially big ships with DSC radios can also see this info as well as being able to see our position plotted on their GPS and radar if they have linked their VHF radio, GPS and radar systems.

After using the inverter system last season, we realized that we needed more battery capacity to generate 120 volt electricity without the noise of the generator.  The two deep cycle batteries would only last part of the night before shutting down about 3AM.  Two more deep cycle, 95 pound batteries were installed in the hold along with associated cables.  The cables used are ¾ inch in diameter to carry the high current loads.  We re-wired the 12 volt battery system so that the 4 inverter batteries became battery bank #2 and now will charge while the engines are running.  The remaining three original marine batteries are now bank #1.  Bank #1 is now connected to the bow thruster battery via a solenoid when the starboard engine is running.  A separate starting battery is designated only for starting the generator.  So – 9 batteries are now aboard Cool Change.

Two larger fire extinguishers have been added in the salon and the galley.  The original small extinguisher in the galley was relocated to the aft cabin.

 I have started replacing the vinyl in the side curtains.  This involves ripping the stitching from the canvas curtains and sewing new vinyl into each section.  Four side curtains have been upgrade so far.  The rest will be a winter project.

During the last trip to the boat, a new, all stainless steel dinghy tilting system was installed.  The old system involved hitch points that were glued to the rubber tubes of the dinghy.  Needless to say, they would not stay glued and the glue costs $60 for a half pint.  The new setup includes a front and rear arc system that bolts into the fiberglass hull of the dinghy.  Three hours were spent just lining up the positions for each piece and determining where to drill through the fiberglass hull of the dinghy and the swim platform of Cool Change.  It was difficult to commit to drilling six holes through the bottom of the dinghy.  But that was the only way to provide a permanently secure attachment.  The new lift eliminates a major concern for the dinghy while traveling.  We are now OK storing the dinghy for extended periods without worry that deflation will dump the dinghy in the water.  See picture  attached:

New dinghy lift - note bolted brackets (Arcs)